


A Sea of Stars

by WanderingTheRailroads



Series: across time and space, my love will find you [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Deathfic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Mostly Dialogue, Past Character Death, Sad, Science Fiction, Self-Sacrifice, he died a hero, yui cries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:52:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13673700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingTheRailroads/pseuds/WanderingTheRailroads
Summary: Yui is a broken soul, struggling to find her way in the darkness of the cosmos. Suga stumbles down the same path.They are both lost, adrift in a sea of stars.





	A Sea of Stars

She's seated alone in the cafeteria watching the world go by, a croissant and steaming mug of synthetic coffee placed before her on the translucent glass table. All around are people rushing to and fro in their varied uniforms: ship mechanics and cargo freighter pilots and FTL techs, and even a High Admiral.

Yui barely registers their faces, her eyes fixed on some distant point in space, staring at someone that _isn't there,_ and neither do any of them pay attention to a zoned-out woman with short hair and a wistful gaze, dressed in a pilot's full body jumpsuit with the collar fastened tightly.

Except for one person.

Yui's so occupied in her thoughts that she barely notices the silver-haired man sneaking up behind her, his uniform the same as hers but black instead of red. She nearly jumps out of her seat when a tap on the shoulder and a gentle voice jolts her back to reality.

 

"Helllooo, Earth to Yuiiiii." he calls out in stretched words, waving one hand in her face from above while the other is holding a water bottle. Craning her neck to peer up at the man, she grins and fistbumps him, greeting her colleague.

"Hi Suga-san. I haven't seen you in a while!"

"Yeah!" Sugawara exclaims cheerfully, briskly walking over to the opposite side of the table and plopping his butt on the empty chair. "Hope you don't mind my intrusion on your 'me time'."

"No, no, it's perfectly alright." Yui waves her hand dismissively."I just felt like taking a break before the next class. It's Flight Trajectories, I can't teach the cadets if I'm not concentrating myself."

 

As he settles into his seat, she peers across at him curiously, noting the slight wrinkles starting to form on his forehead and prominent eyebags, which prompts her to ask "How've you been recently? You look tired."

Suga looks up from fiddling with his wrist datapad and rubs the back of his head, laughing sheepishly.

"Ahaha, I guess you saw through me. To be honest, yeah. Barely had time to rest since I came home two days ago, and I'm off on another deployment tomorrow." With a flick of the wrist, Suga brings up a virtual news feed filled with articles:

"Crows reborn"

"Fighter pilot solves political crisis"

"Rebel remnants on the run".

 

Yui's eyes widen in surprise at the deluge of headlines, and for a moment she regrets her less ambitious career path, but doesn't let slip any emotion.

"Missions? I thought your squadron was decommissioned."

"Oh, not really. I mean, there's still a lot of lingering unrest" he rambles on, scrolling rapidly through the feed, "and planetary revolts, and food shortages, and stuff like that, so..."

"Oh, that sounds horrible! You must be in such danger!" She gasps in mock horror, fanning herself as though on the verge of fainting. Suga is is one of the best pilots in the sector, but Yui can't resist teasing him a little, reminiscing on their academy days.

"I don't mean anything danger- You're just messing with me aren't you?" He glares at her...

 

...and breaks into a peal of laughter. After a moment she catches the laughing virus too, and soon they're face down at the table, struggling to contain their directionless amusement and not bother everyone else around. After what seems like ages, Suga finally manages to compose himself.

 

"It's tiring, but you know, none of us Crows would trade this life for anything else. Not even Asahi." he says, sighing. Yui knows that feeling; she was once a squadron captain herself. Emphasis on the word _was._

"Oh, Asahi. Where IS he now?" she asks, having not heard from him since their final mission together. There were snippets of information and rumors, but nothing substantial.

 "He became a planetary ambassador," Suga utters plainly, without a hint of sarcasm. She can't believe her ears, but Suga isn't a liar, never has been. Still, Asahi of all people...

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"But...he's got such a heart of glass! I'm worried about him meeting people and stuff."

"I think that's exactly why they chose him, Yui. Dude's a big teddy bear, everyone around him just sorta...melts. He even managed to resolve the Jupiter crisis!" Suga retrieves a photo, projecting it in the air.

 

**It's Asahi, smiling and surrounded by a horde of children. Some are riding on his broad shoulders, grabbing at the medals on his chest and his long hair, and others are tugging on his trousers legs, and he's even holding a baby in his arms. The sun is at his back, forming a halo of light that makes him look positively divine.**

 

Yui can't help but giggle at the idea of Asahi (of all people) being some kind of messiah. He certainly fits the look. _I suppose_ , she muses, _the colonists need all the hope they can get to rebuild. The war took too many lives and tore too many families apart_.

Even their Academy graduates weren't spared; she remembers countless sleepless nights, worrying about how to break the news to Mao's concerned parents. And then, a few months later, there was _his_ funeral....

 

A blinking red light emanates from the display, abruptly cutting off the photo feed which causes Sugawara to grimace.

"What's that?" Yui pokes at the display, making it flare up and display a list of to-do reminders.

"My nutrient intake alarm."

He pulls out a tube from his breast pocket and dumps its bubbling contents into the bottle, causing the water within to turn a strange shade of purple. Suga, evidently unfazed by this, downs it all in one gulp while Yui looks on in bemusement.

"You've gotten used to the nutriostabilizers huh?" she asks. Bitter, foul-smelling, and gooey, but absolutely necessary for sustenance on long missions: pilots all have a love-hate relationship with those little vials of "food".

"Yeah, after being on away missions so many times, you just learn to adapt!" He chuckles at her remark, palming the tube back into his pocket in a swift motion.

Yui shakes her head, scrunching up her face in disgust. "I never could get used to them. Fortunately, I'm mostly a trainer these days, so hey."

"If there's one person that never got used to it though, it would be Dai-"

 

Suga freezes midsentence, immediately regretting his choice of words. It's a still-painful subject to discuss: their former colleague, Captain Sawamura Daichi of the Crow Squadron, hero of the Mars Gate Battle, KIA.

 

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up." For a moment, he observes, her cheerful mask falters, but that moment passes in a millisecond and the facade remains secured. 

"It's alright" Yui says, her smile plastic. She reaches over to ruffle Suga's hair. "I'd like to say I've gotten over it...but, well, that would be a lie. We were friends for more than a decade, all the way from middle school."

"Yui...", he intones in a concerned voice, but she doesn't reply.

"Daichi always hated lies. Said I have to be honest with myself as much as I am with others. We captains..."

"...have to be strong." Suga interjects, finishing the oft-repeated sentence that he's heard a million times, wishing in his heart that he could hear it once again. "It's good advice, now that I'm a captain myself."

 

He peers down at his open, scarred palm, flexing it open and closed on the table, as though gripping some invisible object. Suga closes his eyes for a moment, and he can almost feel Daichi's callused hands enveloping his own, sending warmth through his body. But the sensation is different somehow.

 

_Strange, I don't remember Daichi's hands being quite so soft and small._

 

 

When he opens his eyes, it isn't to the sight of his gruff ex-captain, but a softer set of features framed by short brown hair. Her hazel eyes are wet with tears, and Yui's face is dangerously close to Suga's as she leans over the small table, hands placed over his.

"Y-Yui-san?" It's a bad habit, he knows, reverting to honorifics (even amongst best friends) when flustered. But Yui doesn't seem to be fully aware of what she's doing, which makes him even more flustered when their lips meet and he freezes up, unable to pull away even as a voice screams at him in his head.

 

_Her fingers reach out to grasp Daichi's hand beyond the dropship's cargo doorway, but he pulls away with a grim smile,  unholstering his rifle. She's struggling, rushing towards the door, but Sugawara holds her back, arms tight around her waist as she kicks and screams.  
_

_Even now, the image remains vivid._

_As the dropship slingshots away from the battle-worn space station, through the flexiglass window Daichi's ship is ablaze like some avenging angel, its energy barrier deployed and preventing anyone -whether friend or foe- from getting through. Around them, their squadmates are looking grim:_

_Hinata's beating the ship's metal walls in anger, blood running down his arms, and Tsukishima just sits there sobbing._

_Asahi is curled up in a ball beside Nishinoya, his limitless energy finally depleted as he lies exhausted on the ground.  
_

_Yachi's trying her best to sedate a screaming Tanaka, the bandages around his torn exosuit threatening to give way and reopen wounds.  
_

_Mercifully, the rest have succumbed to sleep, but Yui and Suga have no such luxury. As they watch, the whole station goes up in an explosion of light and flame, taking half the rebel ships in orbit with it and forcing a retreat.  
_

 

His mind returning to the present, Suga becomes aware of turned heads all around him and eyes staring at the commotion, whispers floating in the air. He turns bright red...and so does Yui a short while later, drawing back as though she just touched a hot iron.

"Oh my god. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I just-" Yui almost sobs in embarrassment, hiding her face in her hands. "I just...I don't know what came over me."

But deep down, Suga sort of gets it. They're both broken, scrambling to fill the Daichi-shaped void in their souls and grabbing at the next best option.

Two souls, lost and adrift in the sea of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> This one's shorter than the previous AU, since it's more of a conversation-centric fic instead of being plot driven. It could have been longer, I guess, but I got lazy.


End file.
